


Confront the Unknown

by Mertiya



Series: Story Circle [34]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, war of the spark speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 01:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18560716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: In which someone asks why.





	Confront the Unknown

            “Why did you do it?” They were sitting face to face amid the broken cobblestones, her purple dress stained with ash and gravedirt, but she made no effort to dust herself off. Around them, the embers of Ravnica still smoldered. Her body was quivering with the effort of holding herself still, leaning forward eagerly on one hand, while his attitude was relaxed. The smile he gave her from beneath exhausted eyes was barely an echo of his usual sincere, brilliant one.

            “They needed you.”

            “What kind of an answer is that?” She laughed, rubbing her face with the back of her hand. “What kind of a man—”

            “You could do what I couldn’t.”

            “You _left_ everyone, I thought—I thought you _cared_ about other people, how could you—”

            Jace’s face. She had seen him look like that before. It had been her fault before. She didn’t even know if it was her fault this time. But the way it had crumpled—at his side, Vraska and Ral had pulled him close as his legs stopped supporting him. Chandra had been invisible in the center of a column of flame, Nissa crying her name. No one was calling his name, were they? Wasn’t that an oversight?

            “ _I would have died for it_ ,” she gritted out between her teeth. Her throat hurt. Her shoulders hurt. “I’ve never given you any reason to—there was no reason to—”

            “You could do what I couldn’t.”

            “I don’t understand, why can’t you at least make me _understand_?”

            His hand, reaching out, brushing fingers across the back of her knuckles. “I wish I could. I’m sorry.”

            “Not as sorry as I am.” She buried her face in her hands, and the sobs that wouldn’t come before rattled out of her throat. How many hours had she wandered through the Multiverse before returning here? Or had it just been minutes? She had no idea. Everything was just a whirlwind of empty impossibility. For one moment, she had confronted the thing she had been running from for hundreds of years, and it had felt—

            “You felt free,” he said gently, and he put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her close. “It’s all right. Cry if you need to.”

            She didn’t know how long she cried for. Jace had Ral and Vraska. Chandra had Nissa. Who—who did she have?

            She stared up at his face, at the blank eyes and the purple lines of necromancy holding him up. Snapping her fingers with a sigh, she let him fall again, staring at his empty face and emptier eyes. “I’m talking to myself. Just like always.”

            _And I think I deserve it_. _But I still don’t understand_.

            Liliana got unsteadily to her feet, staring around at the toppled remnants of buildings and the smoke still wafting upwards into the air. She snapped her fingers, and several other corpses rose unsteadily to their feet and began to clear the debris.


End file.
